News tagged: Hacking

Nearly a year after federal officials with the Department of Homeland Security learned Russia had targeted state election systems, state officials are finally being informed of the findings. After a push from secretaries of state, the DHS has informed officials in 21 states.

It appears the malware that spread through CCleaner downloads was targeted at some of the world's largest tech companies. The targeted nature of the attack wasn't initially clear, but it has since become evident, according to posts from Avast and Cisco's Talos research group.

CCleaner, a free system maintenance application, has been spreading malware for up to a month. Hackers exploited a vulnerability with the software's download channel, meaning anyone who recently installed the software also installed malware. This attack has impacted millions.

There's an active investigation from the FTC into the Equifax hack, which compromised the personal data of up to 143 million people. Equifax revealed last week that hackers could have stolen Social Security numbers and other kinds of sensitive, personal info.

A Bluetooth vulnerability known as Blueborne could be putting billions of devices at risk. According to researchers with Armis, a digital security firm, the vulnerability allows a hacker who's within 32 feet of a device to take control of the device without a user knowing.

44% of the United States population has been affected by a single hack. Equifax, which provides credit reports, experienced a data breach that exposed the personal information of 143 million people. Some info on people in Canada and the UK was also exposed.

Hackers have broken into the control systems for parts of the US power grid, giving them the ability to shut down power delivery in sections of the country, says Symantec. The security firm discussed attacks by a hacker group called Dragonfly 2.0. No country has been blamed.

The hackers responsible for attacking Instagram and stealing some celebrity account info also put the data up for sale. Hackers were selling access to a database called Doxagram that included the email addresses and phone numbers associated with many accounts.

Vietnam is being hit with a growing number of phishing attacks from hacker groups associated with the Chinese government. According to FireEye, a cybersecurity firm, China has targeted many Vietnamese officials with phishing emails in hopes of breaking into government systems.

HBO reportedly tried to pay off its hackers with a $250,000 lump sum that would have been treated as a "bug bounty payment." Those hackers recently breached HBO's systems, giving them access to unreleased content, emails, and other important private data.

The hackers responsible for breaking into HBO and stealing a large amount of data have reappeared with a ransom demand. Along with calling on the company to hand over a presumably large sum of money, they've leaked internal emails and Game of Thrones-related info.

HBO has been affected by a large cyberattack and the extent of the attack may be greater than the one Sony dealt with in 2014. Hackers have allegedly stolen around 1.5 terabytes of data, which would make the attack 7x "larger" than the Sony cyberattack.

Researchers have come across a piece of Mac malware that managed to go undetected for years. The surveillance malware, known as Fruitfly, can give hackers control over webcams, keyboards, and other parts of a system. It was undiscovered for years despite being easy to spot.

During the past couple months, hackers have attacked multiple nuclear power plants around the United States, reports The New York Times. The identity of the hackers isn't known and we don't know the motive. At least one nuclear facility was actually breached.

Researchers with Check Point Software Technologies say a malware campaign known as CopyCat successfully infected 14 million Android devices. By infecting those devices, the malware was able to generate $1.5 million from fraudulent app installs and advertising.

Bithumb, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has been hacked. 30,000 customers had their data compromised due to the attack and Korea's Internet & Security Agency is looking into the situation following claims from customers that they lost money.

MeDoc, a Ukrainian tax preparation software company, could be charged with facilitating the spread of the NotPetya malware. It offers the country's most popular tax preparation software, but now authorities are treating the company as though it's a criminal entity.

Though Petya, a recent piece of malware spreading around the world, appears to be ransomware from the outside, it may not actually fit the criteria. Researchers with Kaspersky Lab say they believe Petya is actually a "wiper," not legitimate ransomware.

A cyberattack carried out against the UK's Parliament left members without access to their government email on Saturday. The country's authorities disabled email access to prevent the hack from spreading further in the network. It's not known when the hack occurred.

A web hosting company in South Korea is set to shell out $1 million in Bitcoin to put an end to a ransomware attack. Hwang Chil-hong, CEO of Nayana, says the company has agreed to pay 397.6 Bitcoins to recover the data of 3,400 customers. This is the largest payment in history.